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I've been a HTMX fan "since before was cool".. Very happy for the recent attention and "success". Also enjoying the shitposting and backlash mostly from the fr

I've been a HTMX fan "since before was cool".. Very happy for the recent attention and "success". Also enjoying the shitposting and backlash mostly from the front-end crowd who believe the Web was invented in 2013 and they "made that city". :) I'm biased since the time Backbone.js came around, I understood part of the pain but was moderately skeptical, fast forward to React with the young energetic bros building dead simple 5 page websites with a Rube Goldberg setup of front-end frameworks, I've cashed out my tech chips and never touched those things.

jddj 3y ago
I hear you're buying a synthesizer and an arpeggiator and are throwing your computer out the window because you want to make something real. I hear that you and your band have sold your guitars and bought turntables. I hear you rewrote your http endpoints to return JSON because that was REST. I hear that you and your band have sold your turntables and bought guitars. I hear you rewrote your http endpoints to return templated html fragments because that was HATEOAS. I'm losing (regaining/losing/regaining) my edge
- Alifatisk 3y ago
  Is this some kind of metaphor?
  - cantSpellSober 3y ago
    https://genius.com/Lcd-soundsystem-losing-my-edge-lyrics https://genius.com/Lcd-soundsystem-losing-my-edge-lyrics
  - jddj 3y ago
    An appropriation of James Murphy to make a common potshot about webtech trends being as circular as fashion / music ones
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - nilptr 3y ago
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xG4oFny2Pk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xG4oFny2Pk
- bjconlan 3y ago
  Haha, software has more seasons than the fashion industry. If you observe it for long enough everything seems somewhat derivative. But I wouldnt want it any other way. All diversions are welcomed within the choices of those working within the choices of those before us.
- zkldi 3y ago
  BUT HAVE YOU SEEN MY TECH STACK?
- norwalkbear 3y ago
  I suspect VC distorts value in tech choices. I'm pitching a mobile app built in Unity and a custom ruby backend on digital ocean. They questioned my tech choices on a working app! Apparently if you want VC money you must use their approved tech stacks.
  - pragma_x 3y ago
    > I suspect VC distorts value in tech choices. I agree. I think what we're seeing is investment risk assessment as a proxy for a deep understanding in technology. After all, if you don't know how anything works, all you can do is look to what _has_ worked for you and other investors in the past. I'm guessing here, but it's plausible that once a given stack has proven to make money, the fix is in. It wouldn't matter if it's the best choice out there or not. The track record itself makes it more attractive. Example: Ruby on Rails.
    - 0xdeadbeefbabe 3y ago
      This is a fun semantic game. You can also tell them it uses a Von Neumann architecture and also 8 bit bytes. Or how about it uses Linux, or the latest Linux 6.5-rc6?
- ElectricalUnion 3y ago
  Is this supposed to be Rockstar? The reference Rockstar Satriani interpreter barfs on this input.
  - jddj 3y ago
    No, honestly I've never heard of satriani. But I do appreciate that you tried to parse it. It's some lyrics from an LCD Soundsystem track with some topical snark mixed in
- aidenn0 3y ago
  I heard that you have a backup Data8 tape of every Unix release...
  - jddj 3y ago
    Every seminal bsd
mstade 3y ago
Many of the ideas and concepts in htmx are things we worked on starting around 2012 at a top tier investment bank. Implementation details differ quite significantly, but the idea of hypermedia driven applications was core to everything we did. We unfortunately weren't able to win hearts and minds around these concepts in the long run, and blog driven development (a.k.a. cargo culting) replaced our efforts. I feel somewhat redeemed now that HTMX seems to increase in popularity, it's nice to see that we weren't alone in thinking along these concepts. Of course, if the concepts were strong that implies my execution wasn't, so maybe I shouldn't feel so good about it after all... :o)
- zogrodea 3y ago
  Or your marketing might not have been the best possibly, or people didn't spend enough time with alternative approaches to appreciate their downsides and why hypermedia based solutions could be better. (Just pointing out other possibilities because I don't know if it's a good idea to be hard on oneself when one isn't sure about what went wrong.)
  - mstade 3y ago
    These were internally developed tools, so nothing we really marketed externally but yes we definitely could have done a better job at our marketing within the organization. A lot of the criticism to our approach was typically not so much that the ideas were bad, but that they were "different from how everyone else does it" and by everyone else they typically meant Facebook and Google. For example, global state management approaches like Redux were more or less incompatible with how we approached state management. We thought it was insane to build apps around the idea of global state stores (and I still do) but Redux became all the rage and eventually won the day. There was a lot of collateral damage as people then tried to shoehorn Redux everywhere. I left around that time, but hear that the cycle have repeated a few times since. Redux (and other tooling) didn't work out as expected so wheels have been invented again over and over. It's the way things go I guess, I don't dwell too much on it. We probably could've done a better job at communicating why our approach was better, but ultimately we had limited ability to force anyone to use our tooling. There's also a hiring aspect in there. As Redux and other libraries that were "the thing" started to make their way into job descriptions it became harder and harder to convince talent that they should join us, because we didn't have that brand recognition and used in-house tooling. At some point you have to make trade offs and sadly top tier financial institutions aren't necessarily known for leading the pack in terms of innovation. It's kind of sad really. Anyway I'm not particularly hard on myself or bitter about it at all actually. The self deprecating jab about poor execution should be read as tounge-in-cheek really, I'm very proud of the work we did back then.
Cthulhu_ 3y ago
I enjoyed building webapps with Backbone, it was rich web applications that felt like true apps instead of trying to make parts of a site more dynamic using jquery. It was a clean separation between front- and back-end. But Backbone was a bit sloppy, not very enterprisey, until Angular came around. Anyway, this string of web applications became popular (in my world) because it meant that we could separate back-end from front-end, and have one back-end (usually REST/JSON) fueling mobile and web clients separately. That was it, that was why we built SPA's, but by now that has been forgotten again. And in my world, it made sense because the apps were behind a login. But then They wanted to make SPA's facing the internet, for things like webshops. And I get that too; I've made a few websites using Gatsby, they're crazy fast for navigating AND still indexed by search engines. Anyway, in some cases it did get more and more complicated, then with server-side React and the like. I never had to touch that, thankfully.
norwalkbear 3y ago
React is very diverse community, who are these react bros? I went to a series of JavaScript conferences and React is extremely diverse.
- PedroBatista 3y ago
  I was recounting the past. I'm sure it is "diverse" ( whatever that means ) now because it became kind of a industry standard for front-ends. Good to see diversity all around, I just wish there also would be diversity of thought and it comes to building web pages. But I guess that would lead to people admitting ~80% of all the stuff they build does not require React or equivalent js frameworks and that would be both an ego and economic/résumé problem..
  - gochi 3y ago
    It's an industry standard for people who like React. It's really that simple. This idea that they are so dominant and everyone is forced to use it is complete hogwash. JQuery and Wordpress still dominate the web completely.
    - recursive 3y ago
      Maybe you can explain this to my otherwise reasonable employer.
  - steve_adams_86 3y ago
    > ( whatever that means ) I inferred that the intent was to say that not all people using React fit into one category. > ~80% of all the stuff they build does not require React or equivalent js frameworks I'm well aware of this for some portion of the things I build, but I don't agree that these frameworks are generally unnecessary or not preferable. It's also hard to say when something "requires" these tools or not. Arguably you could say nothing requires them these days. I like to build with all kinds of tools though, and React and Vue are for example are often more helpful than harmful to my development experience. I'm speaking as someone who has been building things for the internet for around 20 years, so I remember life without these tools. > that would be both an ego and economic/résumé problem Maybe. I think this might be more true in roles that are closer to entry level, though. edit: From your previous comment, > fast forward to React with the young energetic bros building dead simple 5 page websites with a Rube Goldberg setup of front-end frameworks This is a good point. It's still a thing and will probably never go away, regardless of which frameworks we have. I think it stems from people fundamentally misunderstanding our core web technologies and not realizing how easy it is to do what they're doing without React or Next or Nuxt or what have you. In many cases I've worked with people who wanted to do the most trivial things in their UIs and they worked tirelessly and earnestly to implement it with React or Vue, but it was something that already exists in the Web API or HTML elements. Basic stuff like reinventing checkboxes. Or reinventing the button element by styling an anchor and altering its behaviour with JavaScript to submit a form. So many younger people have started their careers in web development on frameworks, and they genuinely don't understand how the fundamentals work.
gemstones 3y ago
Do you think that the frontend crowd similarly thinks that you build dead simple 5 page websites with a Rube Goldberg setup of back-end frameworks? I certainly do.
recursivedoubts 3y ago
:) I appreciate you being a long time user and I certainly do a lot of s-word posting on the ol' twitters on the other hand, my hope is that eventually htmx (and, more generally, hypermedia) is accepted as a tool, a useful too, but just a tool, even by the front-end folks who haven't thought very much about hypermedia in a while i don't see the two approaches as mutually exclusive and agree w/ Rich Harris' concept of 'Transitional' web applications that mix the two approaches. I would just draw the line where you abandon hypermedia for a more elaborate client side approach in a different place than him.

jddj 3y ago

I hear you're buying a synthesizer and an arpeggiator and are throwing your computer out the window because you want to make something real. I hear that you and your band have sold your guitars and bought turntables. I hear you rewrote your http endpoints to return JSON because that was REST. I hear that you and your band have sold your turntables and bought guitars. I hear you rewrote your http endpoints to return templated html fragments because that was HATEOAS. I'm losing (regaining/losing/regaining) my edge

Alifatisk 3y ago
Is this some kind of metaphor?
- cantSpellSober 3y ago
  https://genius.com/Lcd-soundsystem-losing-my-edge-lyrics https://genius.com/Lcd-soundsystem-losing-my-edge-lyrics
- jddj 3y ago
  An appropriation of James Murphy to make a common potshot about webtech trends being as circular as fashion / music ones
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- nilptr 3y ago
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xG4oFny2Pk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xG4oFny2Pk
bjconlan 3y ago
Haha, software has more seasons than the fashion industry. If you observe it for long enough everything seems somewhat derivative. But I wouldnt want it any other way. All diversions are welcomed within the choices of those working within the choices of those before us.
zkldi 3y ago
BUT HAVE YOU SEEN MY TECH STACK?
norwalkbear 3y ago
I suspect VC distorts value in tech choices. I'm pitching a mobile app built in Unity and a custom ruby backend on digital ocean. They questioned my tech choices on a working app! Apparently if you want VC money you must use their approved tech stacks.
- pragma_x 3y ago
  > I suspect VC distorts value in tech choices. I agree. I think what we're seeing is investment risk assessment as a proxy for a deep understanding in technology. After all, if you don't know how anything works, all you can do is look to what _has_ worked for you and other investors in the past. I'm guessing here, but it's plausible that once a given stack has proven to make money, the fix is in. It wouldn't matter if it's the best choice out there or not. The track record itself makes it more attractive. Example: Ruby on Rails.
  - 0xdeadbeefbabe 3y ago
    This is a fun semantic game. You can also tell them it uses a Von Neumann architecture and also 8 bit bytes. Or how about it uses Linux, or the latest Linux 6.5-rc6?
ElectricalUnion 3y ago
Is this supposed to be Rockstar? The reference Rockstar Satriani interpreter barfs on this input.
- jddj 3y ago
  No, honestly I've never heard of satriani. But I do appreciate that you tried to parse it. It's some lyrics from an LCD Soundsystem track with some topical snark mixed in
aidenn0 3y ago
I heard that you have a backup Data8 tape of every Unix release...
- jddj 3y ago
  Every seminal bsd

mstade 3y ago

Many of the ideas and concepts in htmx are things we worked on starting around 2012 at a top tier investment bank. Implementation details differ quite significantly, but the idea of hypermedia driven applications was core to everything we did. We unfortunately weren't able to win hearts and minds around these concepts in the long run, and blog driven development (a.k.a. cargo culting) replaced our efforts. I feel somewhat redeemed now that HTMX seems to increase in popularity, it's nice to see that we weren't alone in thinking along these concepts. Of course, if the concepts were strong that implies my execution wasn't, so maybe I shouldn't feel so good about it after all... :o)

zogrodea 3y ago
Or your marketing might not have been the best possibly, or people didn't spend enough time with alternative approaches to appreciate their downsides and why hypermedia based solutions could be better. (Just pointing out other possibilities because I don't know if it's a good idea to be hard on oneself when one isn't sure about what went wrong.)
- mstade 3y ago
  These were internally developed tools, so nothing we really marketed externally but yes we definitely could have done a better job at our marketing within the organization. A lot of the criticism to our approach was typically not so much that the ideas were bad, but that they were "different from how everyone else does it" and by everyone else they typically meant Facebook and Google. For example, global state management approaches like Redux were more or less incompatible with how we approached state management. We thought it was insane to build apps around the idea of global state stores (and I still do) but Redux became all the rage and eventually won the day. There was a lot of collateral damage as people then tried to shoehorn Redux everywhere. I left around that time, but hear that the cycle have repeated a few times since. Redux (and other tooling) didn't work out as expected so wheels have been invented again over and over. It's the way things go I guess, I don't dwell too much on it. We probably could've done a better job at communicating why our approach was better, but ultimately we had limited ability to force anyone to use our tooling. There's also a hiring aspect in there. As Redux and other libraries that were "the thing" started to make their way into job descriptions it became harder and harder to convince talent that they should join us, because we didn't have that brand recognition and used in-house tooling. At some point you have to make trade offs and sadly top tier financial institutions aren't necessarily known for leading the pack in terms of innovation. It's kind of sad really. Anyway I'm not particularly hard on myself or bitter about it at all actually. The self deprecating jab about poor execution should be read as tounge-in-cheek really, I'm very proud of the work we did back then.

Cthulhu_ 3y ago

I enjoyed building webapps with Backbone, it was rich web applications that felt like true apps instead of trying to make parts of a site more dynamic using jquery. It was a clean separation between front- and back-end. But Backbone was a bit sloppy, not very enterprisey, until Angular came around. Anyway, this string of web applications became popular (in my world) because it meant that we could separate back-end from front-end, and have one back-end (usually REST/JSON) fueling mobile and web clients separately. That was it, that was why we built SPA's, but by now that has been forgotten again. And in my world, it made sense because the apps were behind a login. But then They wanted to make SPA's facing the internet, for things like webshops. And I get that too; I've made a few websites using Gatsby, they're crazy fast for navigating AND still indexed by search engines. Anyway, in some cases it did get more and more complicated, then with server-side React and the like. I never had to touch that, thankfully.

norwalkbear 3y ago

React is very diverse community, who are these react bros? I went to a series of JavaScript conferences and React is extremely diverse.

PedroBatista 3y ago
I was recounting the past. I'm sure it is "diverse" ( whatever that means ) now because it became kind of a industry standard for front-ends. Good to see diversity all around, I just wish there also would be diversity of thought and it comes to building web pages. But I guess that would lead to people admitting ~80% of all the stuff they build does not require React or equivalent js frameworks and that would be both an ego and economic/résumé problem..
- gochi 3y ago
  It's an industry standard for people who like React. It's really that simple. This idea that they are so dominant and everyone is forced to use it is complete hogwash. JQuery and Wordpress still dominate the web completely.
  - recursive 3y ago
    Maybe you can explain this to my otherwise reasonable employer.
- steve_adams_86 3y ago
  > ( whatever that means ) I inferred that the intent was to say that not all people using React fit into one category. > ~80% of all the stuff they build does not require React or equivalent js frameworks I'm well aware of this for some portion of the things I build, but I don't agree that these frameworks are generally unnecessary or not preferable. It's also hard to say when something "requires" these tools or not. Arguably you could say nothing requires them these days. I like to build with all kinds of tools though, and React and Vue are for example are often more helpful than harmful to my development experience. I'm speaking as someone who has been building things for the internet for around 20 years, so I remember life without these tools. > that would be both an ego and economic/résumé problem Maybe. I think this might be more true in roles that are closer to entry level, though. edit: From your previous comment, > fast forward to React with the young energetic bros building dead simple 5 page websites with a Rube Goldberg setup of front-end frameworks This is a good point. It's still a thing and will probably never go away, regardless of which frameworks we have. I think it stems from people fundamentally misunderstanding our core web technologies and not realizing how easy it is to do what they're doing without React or Next or Nuxt or what have you. In many cases I've worked with people who wanted to do the most trivial things in their UIs and they worked tirelessly and earnestly to implement it with React or Vue, but it was something that already exists in the Web API or HTML elements. Basic stuff like reinventing checkboxes. Or reinventing the button element by styling an anchor and altering its behaviour with JavaScript to submit a form. So many younger people have started their careers in web development on frameworks, and they genuinely don't understand how the fundamentals work.

gemstones 3y ago

Do you think that the frontend crowd similarly thinks that you build dead simple 5 page websites with a Rube Goldberg setup of back-end frameworks? I certainly do.

recursivedoubts 3y ago

:) I appreciate you being a long time user and I certainly do a lot of s-word posting on the ol' twitters on the other hand, my hope is that eventually htmx (and, more generally, hypermedia) is accepted as a tool, a useful too, but just a tool, even by the front-end folks who haven't thought very much about hypermedia in a while i don't see the two approaches as mutually exclusive and agree w/ Rich Harris' concept of 'Transitional' web applications that mix the two approaches. I would just draw the line where you abandon hypermedia for a more elaborate client side approach in a different place than him.